The inside story on what’s known regarding The Rock’s return to Smackdown, who knew what and when, and what’s next

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made his return to WWE Smackdown tonight and once again rerouted and displaced prior WrestleMania plans. He confronted Cody Rhodes and, after an odd and sometimes meandering and glitchy promo where he bounded seemingly indiscriminately between his babyface and heel personas, closed with a buzz-generating proposition that he wanted Cody to be “his champion.” He said he wanted Cody’s soul and he expected an answer from Cody at the Elimination Chamber next Saturday whether Cody would align with him.

The promo embraced a lot of the turmoil Rock caused last year when he showed up and derailed, temporarily, the plans for Cody Rhodes to dethrone Roman Reigns at WrestleMania. Rock eventually yielded to the original plans, an acknowledgment that his conceit that he was such a big star that it was worth displacing Cody’s journey was a miscalculation.

In a way, Rock embraced his own psychosis in tonight’s promo as he flexed about his social media followers compared to Cody while bringing even more into the cannon of on-air storylines that in real life he’s the most powerful person in all of WWE because of his position on the TKO board and his closeness with top executives. He even dropped Ari Emanuel’s name, the top Endeavor executive, essentially the parent company of TKO.

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This came about rather quickly behind the scenes, as this segment with Rock wasn’t in the plans or even talked about with any specifics before this week, according to our sourcing and corroborated by other reporting by Fightful tonight. That said, WWE’s creative team were aware of the possibility that, like last year, Rock would show up with his people and interject himself with a storyline he had decided upon.

There were enough indications in recent weeks that led to everyone essentially anticipating and bracing themselves for this as a likelihood. Rock does have enough pull to basically dictate what his involvement will or won’t be, displacing other plans. Tonight’s segment will dramatically change what had been planned and is likely to be met with, at the very least, quiet grumbling and frustrations among various parties invested in those original plans.

Although the common belief for a while has been that Rock wouldn’t wrestle at WrestleMania this year, there were hints that he was looking at ways to be part of a WrestleMania storyline nonetheless. Rock said in his post-Smackdown press conference that he doesn’t think tonight’s angle necessarily has to lead to a match between him and Cody.

Rock informed Paul Levesque and the rest of the WWE creative team of his intentions relatively recently, and then the ideas were refined and adjusted through some collaboration leading to what aired on Smackdown tonight. Rock didn’t want his appearance on Smackdown advertised before last night. Cody Rhodes was advertised for a six-man tag match tonight, and that was changed to accommodate Rock. It’s a very small circle that knows what’s going to happen at Elimination Chamber next week.

It’s possible Cody will join Rock and turn heel. It’s possible Cody will turn down Rock and then Rock will find another person, such as Drew McIntryre if he wins the Elimination Chamber, to offer up his soul leading to a Cody vs. McIntyre match. Or perhaps Roman Reigns gets involved, setting a Rock vs. Roman match at this year’s WrestleMania or another time, delaying a Cody-Rock match until next year in New Orleans. There are a lot of possibilities, although most indications are that Rock is not planning to actually wrestle at WrestleMania this year.

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RELATED PODCAST…

PWTorch editor Wade Keller and PWTorch columnist Rich Fann discussed this situation in great depth on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post-show right after Smackdown including live chat, live caller, and email interactions. They also spoke with a correspondent who attended in person and shared details on how the crowd responded, plus off-air details on Lilian Garcia reacting strongly to nearly getting injured. Watch the show on YouTube or listen to the audio-only podcast.)